Noe wrote:
I had a very good experience with the Tiger club recently. A bit far from you though. After not having flown TW for many years – I think the last I flew was the (I believe) now-scrapped G-WLAC, i got to do a couple circuits with one of the instructors, and was sent solo after less than 1h, despite their PA18 being fairly different to WLAC (60hp less and no flaps)
That’s good! Did you actually already have tailwheel differences training complete in the dim and distant past, or just like me a couple of hours? If you already had it then it’s really just a checkout for their aeroplane, nothing legally required for you to fly tailwheel again.
I think I flew G-WLAC but stopped because I bought the TB10 share and didn’t see the point in a few more hours dual training in an aircraft that I wasn’t going to subsequently hire. Sad to hear it’s not around anymore, but then I’d not seen it for ages….
Amongst others’ scepticism, can I be the first to say…
Looks perfect for me (vanilla PPL), looking forward to it!
I’m sure the TK will give no credit towards a full IR, but then again the CBIR TK doesn’t give credit towards ATPL either. Better to throw away 3 exams than 7.
As an ex-UK licence holder, I’d been considering the IMCR for a while but held off due to its limited geographical validity. This seems to be roughly the same but recognised EASA-wide – perfect for my brand new Irish licence! :-)
In essence, the BIR will require the same TK as the FAA IR, and perhaps roughly the same flight time because we still want to learn to operate the machine in IMC and to practice fun, confidence-building, stuff like 0/0 departures, unusual attitudes on limited panel etc.
In return we get a sub-ICAO “instrument” rating, the privileges of which are to take off from controlled European airports in VMC, to supervise an autopilot in sunny Class A airspace, to make cloud-breaks where we might otherwise have found a fortuitously located “hole” 
, and to land at controlled European airports in VMC…
Perhaps this new BIR will be as popular as the EIR which it is due to replace, but I’m disinclined to put money on that.
@Noe The CB IR already exists and you can upgrade on the basis of the EIR with full credit of the theoretical part. That’s what I meant. Not sure about the BIR though. But it wouldn’t make any sense to not credit the EIR-theory for that, since the CB IR is the “superior” rating over the BIR.
Except the IR(R) are recommendations only, not actual limits, aren’t they?
The visibility requirement is mandatory, and where RVR reporting is available, it is enforceable (well, ATC may not know you don’t have a full IR, but that’s not their problem).
The DH figure is pilot-interpreted so unenforceable.
I need to read the BIR doc but if the 600ft is a preflight TAF requirement then it is enforceable.
EASA is heavily bound by committee politics and always seems to go 3 steps forward and 2 backwards. No wonder there is almost no take-up of these things. To sell any product, it has to give a decisive advantage in the marketplace. A car which is same as the previous one but goes 5km/h faster is not going to succeed.
We did the EIR in other threads. It is good for replacing the enroute limits for long VFR flights, but relatively few pilots do long range VFR. I used to… For any serious IFR it brings major issues, with perhaps the inability to fly a SID or a STAR being as big as not flying an IAP.
Airborne_Again wrote:
See my first post above. Higher visibility minima, higher decision height minima.
Compared with what?
Peter wrote:
Is the 600ft a DH for an IAP?
No, it is a “planning minimum” – the forecast must show a ceiling of 600 ft (or one of the other values, if higher), but once you arrive at the destination the ceiling doesn’t matter.
LeSving wrote:
Compared with what?
Compared with the minima for someone having a regular IR. As I wrote, a BIR holder has to add 200 ft to the decision height. A BIR holder can’t make an approach or departure with less than 1500 m visibility, while a regular PPL/IR holder can depart with down to 400 m RVR and make an approach with down to 550 m RVR, depending on the approach, the airport and aircraft equipment.
These limitations have very little to do with training but all with currency. EASA’s reasoning is that PPL/BIR holders will typically not make very many instrument approaches and thus have limited currency. That is correct as far as it goes, but it needlessly penalises those who do have the currency and exactly the same argument can be applied to PPL/IR holders who don’t have any limitations.
Noe wrote:
That’s not what’s implied by the first post:
The current EIR exams are the same as the CB-IR exams. The new BIR exams will not be.
What surprises me most with the BIR is that apparently the only thing that makes it non ICAO-compliant is that there are no minimum training hours. The TK will be approximately the same as the FAA IR TK which is an ICAO-compliant IR.
